OBJECTIVE To confirm the validity and reliability of the Participation Reasons Scale (PRS), which explores reasons for participating in continuing professional education (CPE), with a sample of Greek doctors and nurses.

MATERIAL With the permission of the authors, translation into Greek of the PRS, back translation, validation by a panel of experts (content and face validity), and test-retest reliability were performed. The study entailed a descriptive, comparative, correlational design, using a self-completed questionnaire, including the Likert type PRS, for data collection, and it was conducted between March and September 2010. The sample consisted of 971 health professionals (531 military doctors and 440 military nurses), of a total population of 2,025 working in the Hellenic Army health services, throughout Greece (response rate 47.2%). In order to establish the construct validity of the scales the responses to the PRS were factor analyzed by the method of principal components analysis with varimax rotation. Loadings of >0.4 were accepted. The reliability of the scale was measured with Cronbach's α. Statistical analysis was performed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The level of significance was set at p=0.05.

RESULTS Analysis of the testretest reliability showed a statistically significant level of agreement for each item (p<0.001). Factor analysis of the 30 possible reasons for participating in CPE revealed four main motivational factors: "Improvement of professional competence and patient service", "professional commitment", "collegial learning and interaction" and "personal benefits and job security", which explained 64.0% and 66.4%, respectively, of the total variance in the Greek PRS for doctors (α=0.92) and for nurses (α=0.93).

CONCLUSIONS The PRS is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring the reasons of doctors and nurses for participating in CPE. It is well documented that the exploration of such factors facilitates the planning and implementation of the most appropriate educational programs for the good of all stakeholders: The health professionals, the patients, the managers, the policy makers and society as a whole.